Patent GB-375337-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in weighing machines combined with sound reproducing apparatus
IPC: G01G19/00
Filed: 1930-12-24
Abstract: 375,337. Weighing-apparatus. RIVAS, R. L. and IRIBARNE, E., 343, Azcuenaga Street, Buenos Aires. Dec. 24, 1930, No. 38873. [Class 143.] Relates to a weighing machine combined with a gramophone or sound-film apparatus, adapted to reproduce speech &c. for advertising or like purposes when the machine is used. According to the invention, means are provided for rotating the gramophone turntable or a wheel of the sound-film reproducing apparatus through one revolution at a time, the said means consisting of a motor-driven plate having projecting pins engaging a device such as a star-wheel on the turntable or the equivalent wheel. In the construction shown in Figs. 2 .. 5, a gramophone is enclosed in a box 1 at the base of the weighing machine and the trumpet 2 extends vertically with its mouth 3, protected by a wire screen, over the scale. The gramophone is operated by an electromotor 5 which drives a plate 9 through worm gearing. The freely-mounted turntable 11 carries a starwheel 12, frictionally held by springs 12<1>, Fig. 5, which wheel co-operates with a stop 15 and with two pins 10 fixed at diametrically opposite points on the plate 9. As the plate 9 rotates, one of the pins 10 drives the turntable by engagement with the star-wheel 12, and at the end of one revolution the wheel 12 meets the stop 15, which shifts it through a quarter turn and allows the driving pin 10 to pass. Consequently the turntable remains stationary until the other pin 10 reaches the star-wheel and in its turn drives the turntable through another revolution, and so on ; each turn of the record may effect the announcement of a complete sentence. The circuit of the motor is closed by a switch actuated by the weighing machine, so that the gramophone continues to operate while the load is on the platform. Means are provided, however, to ensure that the turntable always makes one or more complete revolutions. For this purpose, contacts 17 are arranged in parallel with the switch controlled by the weighing mechanism, these contacts being adapted to be bridged by a spring-controlled arm 16 coacting with a cam 18 on the turntable. The arrangement is such that the current through the motor can be cut off only when the cam 18 engages the arm 16. The gramophone sound-box is automatically returned to the starting-point on the record when the needle has reached the innermost turn. For this purpose, a guiding arm 20, Fig. 9, having an outer movable portion 22 normally held up by a spring 23, is secured to the turntable spindle. The needle enters at 25 a groove in the arm, and the sound-box is carried back thereby until it depresses the part 22 and is lowered on to the outer edge of the record. A modification is described (Figs. 15, 16, 17, not shown), in which, instead of a gramophone, an apparatus is provided for reproducing sound photo-electrically from an endless film record. The film is driven intermittently by sprocket wheels, driven by a bevel wheel to which single revolutions are imparted. For this purpose, mechanism comprising a star-wheel coacting with pins on a wheel driven by an electromotor is provided, as in the arrangement previously described.